Ibn al-Haytham writes the Book of Optics
A landmark work on light, written under house arrest
Ordered by Caliph al-Hakim to tame the Nile floods, the scholar realised it was impossible and, legend says, feigned madness to escape the ruler's wrath. Under house arrest he showed that we see because light enters the eye, not because rays leave it.
Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — 11 years earlier
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — 23 years earlier
Middle East
- 1010 Ferdowsi completes the Shahnameh — 1 year earlier
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — 14 years later
Asia
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — 1 year earlier
- 1010 The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur — 1 year earlier
Americas
- 1021 Norse in North America — 10 years later
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 51)
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (aged 31)
- Ferdowsi (aged 71)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 45)
- Leif Erikson (aged 41)
- Murasaki Shikibu (aged 38)
- Yaroslav the Wise (aged 33)
- Cnut the Great (aged 16)
- Edward the Confessor (aged 8)
- Sei Shōnagon (aged 45)